


Through the Crowd to an Empty Space

by aactionjohnny



Category: The Venture Bros
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-20
Updated: 2018-12-20
Packaged: 2019-09-23 17:19:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17084465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aactionjohnny/pseuds/aactionjohnny
Summary: Pete’s always worshipped him, but he had no idea just how powerful of a man he is.





	Through the Crowd to an Empty Space

**Author's Note:**

> This is a commission for a wonderful tumblr user! Takes place in an au wherein Pete once worked for the Guild.

It’s 1983. He feels like his skin is going to break off into the wind, he’s washed his face so many times. He can’t look ugly tonight. Not in the front row, not in the face of a god. His mom thinks that’s a little dramatic, but she still agreed to buy him a ticket for his birthday. The papers say the show is like a circus in outer space, that the fashion is like nothing you’ve ever seen or will ever see again.

He’s wearing tight-tight pants, black with leather stripes up the side. A hot-pink shirt tucked in, highlighting just how scrawny he is these days. No matter how many beers he chugs at parties, no matter how many orders of cheese fries he gets. He’ll always be a waif and a ghost. Just like Bowie, ever-svelte, compact. Getting away with much crazier clothes than his. 

And even with his middle-parted stark-white hair, his awful skin and his gleaming braces, in this crowd of freaks he doesn’t feel so bad. No one even pays him any mind. And it’s not the usual refusal to look at him, as if that might protect his feelings a little better than gawking. No. He’s simply unnoticed. No one is here to see him. They’re all here to witness something sacred and spectacular.

The crowd seems to part for him like he’s some sort of holy man. Isn’t this a pilgrimage? Isn’t this a rite of passage? The only shows he’s been to were in basements and gymnasiums. But there’s a distinct magic that surrounds that man, godlike indeed, that seems to bring all of the crowd to a higher plane.

It’s during _ Let’s Dance _ when he ascends. The stage is adorned with shining red shoes, the giant crescent moon shape like a shield above the performance. He’s mere feet from him. 

The way he moves so effortlessly is entrancing. How his ever motion is a dance, how his voice carries like an angel’s song into the screaming hoard. 

_ And if you say run, I’ll run with you… _

He’s kneeling down, running a hand through the eager rabble, and when he gets to Pete, he brushes fingers over his pale cheek.

_ And if you say hide, we’ll hide… _

He only realizes after that he was wiping away a rapturous tear.

 

\--

 

It’s 1989. Gone are his pale pinks and charming smile. He’s bereft of something he didn’t have the time to name.  _ I never want to see you again. _ He’s taken it farther than Billy meant it; he doesn’t want to be seen by anyone. It’s always been easier to be invisible, paper-thin so when he turns in the right direction he disappears entirely.

“This will be your office,” he’s told, though it’s muted by his habit of existing outside of his body. “If you can call it that.” The gravelly voice of the young man who orients him is so eager and fresh. His first day must have not been long ago. 

The room is small and dark. It feels underground although he knows it to be in a high tower, in disguise as something much less nefarious.

“The Sovereign will send you your assignments via electronic mail. Which I heard he invented.”

“You’re kiddin’--”

“Scout’s Honor, Mr. White! We live at the cutting edge here at the Guild.”

He’s left alone and he runs a finger beneath the collar of his new red shirt. Time to work.

 

\--

 

It’s 1990. It’s a lucky little thing that he can’t get any paler, because he spends all of his days indoors in the dark. The time of day has become irrelevant, and it’s almost a comfort in his ennui; he used to have to worry about things. Like the sunlight and what people thought of him. But here they’re all in black, they’re all serious, all focused. And he’s earned quite a bit of respect. He’s earned his fair share of friends, maybe. He’s not sure if he can call them that, so tepid everyone’s words are. There is no warmth here but the overheating of his computer.

He’s even gained the Sovereign’s attention with his skills. He didn’t explain just  _ why _ it was so easy for him to hack into the Venture mainframe, just  _ why  _ he could figure out the passwords. But despite his insider knowledge, still he shined brightly and earned accolades.

 

One day he gets a message, written in that red courier new font, all capital letters. It seems everything at the Guild is urgent.

PETER WHITE. PLEASE REPORT TO THE THIRTEENTH FLOOR IMMEDIATELY.

He blinks. What did he do wrong? In a rush, he retraces his every move. Over the past week, month, year. He scrambles to find a horrible mistake. And how do they punish people here, he wonders. No doubt it won’t be something as easy as a beheading. Knowing what little he knows, he can still guess that his death would be slow and torturous.

As he shuts the door to his office he reconciles that he might deserve it.

On the thirteenth floor, its ceilings low and its lights dull, he follows the glowing red arrows that lead him to a bulletproof sliding door. He jumps when a thin, flat laser beam flashes above him, and then descends down his body.

_ Scanning. Identity confirmed. You may enter, Mr. White _ .

He gulps and steps through the door, maybe to his own doom.

In the lounge, a glass of some tawny liquor in his hand, he sees the silhouette of him. Other-worldly and divine.

“S-sovereign?” he squeaks, timidly stepping forward as if surrounded by glass.

“Yes, but you might know me by another name.” 

When he turns around, Pete’s jaw hangs open and his red eyes grow wide. 

“No friggin’ way--”

“Yes way, I’m afraid. Important to keep this sort of thing quiet, you understand.”

All Pete can do is nod and stare. His cheek feels aflame, like it was so lovingly branded that one evening.  _ If you say hide, we’ll hide… _

“I’ve been quite impressed by you, Peter,” he says, that smooth accent making him shiver. _ Oh my god, oh my  _ **_god,_ ** _ no way--  _ He finds he’s sweating. “Oh, no need to be nervous. You’re not here to be scolded.”

“Ah-- y-yeah I was worried…”

“You needn’t fear for your life, Peter.” He steps closer. They’re nearly nose to nose, and Pete swears he sees a glow in those multi-colored eyes. “Unless you tell people who I really am. Only then will I be obligated to kill you.”

His chest heaves in fear and adoration, disbelief and thrill. He knows he’s not joking. And though so many times of late Pete has longed for death, he dare not betray this god among men.

It takes him weeks to work up the courage to ask. They’re alone, like they have been most evenings, chatting by the wide, gold-trimmed window in The Sovereign’s quarters.

“Do you uh...do ya remember me, sir?”  _ Sir, _ he still calls him, even though he’s been told he’s his favorite underling. He’s being groomed for something, he can tell. He’s being kept. Given nicer clothes than everyone else, more vacation time, fancy cocktails and dinner delivered to his door. It’s surreal…

“Begpardon, darling?” he asks, absently. How he can so casually seduce and weaken him, Pete cannot understand. For fuck’s sake, he’s sitting here next to his idol and he’s being called such sweet things, he ought to be having a goddamn heart attack.

“It was uh...the Serious Moonlight tour. Ya touched my cheek during  _ Let’s Dance _ …”

The Sovereign stares at him a moment, as if studying him, searching for him in his memory. And then he grins, so handsome but impish.

“Yes, yes,” he agrees, and he moves closer to Pete on the couch. When he lefts a hand to Pete’s face, he find he softens, his shoulders sloping and his lips hanging open as if he’s been dosed with some sort of euphoric drug. “How could I forget, and how could I not have noticed you?” 

He makes love like he invented it. Just like proto-punk. Just like the revolution of his music, he changes Pete’s life that night. 

 

\--

 

It’s 1992. He has a nicer office now, and someone to work for him. He’s been giving a year-long project of hacking into the SPHYNX system and clearing all of their data on the Guild. He has to be slow, calculating, subtle, so that they don’t catch on. Stealing information little by little, collecting fodder for the organization’s downfall. They aren’t necessarily enemies with the Guild, not on paper, but they stand in the way of their monopoly on antagonizing the OSI. And, ever loyal, dutiful, and purposeless, Pete works his fingers to the bone in pursuit.

But he hits a snag. He’s hyped up on so much caffeine mixed with so much scotch from his benefactor, that when it happens he doesn’t even notice right away.

The screen flashes brightly, and he squints. On the monitor there appears a frightful Pharaoh mask with glowing eyes and a mean stare.

**“You think we do not know what you are doing, Guild lackey? You will rue the day you thought so highly of yourself.”**

And then nothing.

In a panic, Pete shuts down the system, breathing heavily as he gathers up his papers and his cups and clears the room. Knowing not what else to do, he scrambles out of the room and rushes to the elevator to seek guidance and forgiveness.

When he enters The Sovereign’s quarters he’s babbling apologies already.

“I am _ so  _ sorry, sir, I dunno how it happened but all of a sudden they just--”

His superior holds up a hand, bids him to be silent. Pete gulps and wrings his hands.

“I put my trust in you, and you failed me.” He sounds so calm, like he’s reading from a grocery list. “Tsk, tsk, Peter, whatever am I going to do with you?”

Pete feels willowy, like a young Jennifer Connelly stuck in an Escher drawing. Or Candy Clark about to piss herself in fear. And isn’t that just right? He’s his leading lady, his pawn.

“I-I can fix it, I promise--”

The Sovereign turns around, his eyes with that same familiar glow that Pete once found a comfort. But now it strikes through him like so much lightning in a storm. He strides forward, his face so grave and stern, Pete feels too paralyzed to even walk backwards or try to run away. Slowly, grotesquely, The Sovereign begins to change. Pete’s seen him shape-shift before, of course, but _ this _ \--

He seems to form every screaming, howling terror that Pete has ever dreamed of. Eldritch, shadowy, he grows to surround him like a suffocating black fog. His knees shake and he wishes so badly he could close his eyes, pretend he’s somewhere else, pretend he’d made different choices and never ended up here.

“You are a fool to have believed your position in my heart would save you from your mistakes, Peter.” His voice is deep, hollow, searing through Pete’s sensitive ears like a dropped microphone. A hand, talon-like and ethereal, reaches to touch his face. Again, and always, wiping all manner of tears from beneath his eyes. “I could have loved you.”

“I--I  _ do _ love ya, though--”

“Even if I am not the man you think I am?” he growls, those smoky, hot-yet-cold hands surrounding his neck, his shoulders, his waist. “Get out of my sight, Peter. I cannot kill you.”

“But--”

“Before I change my mind.”

Sobbing, he runs. He strips off his black jacket and throws it to the floor once he reaches the lobby, tears his ID badge from his shirt and tosses it in the face of a security guard.

 

\--

 

It’s 1995. He’s sitting in the trailer, half-listening to the radio while Billy washes dishes.

“And now here’s a classic. You know he’s got new music coming out soon. I think it’s called _ Buddha of Suburbia _ or something?” DJs these days. They have no idea how to talk to their audience. “Anyway, from the legendary 1972 album  _ The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars _ , here’s a favorite of mine:  _ It Ain’t Easy _ .” 

Pete drops his magazine to his lap. The music is somehow so loud beneath the sound of the running water. Billy doesn’t know. Nobody does. He can’t imagine the shame and the tears if he told a soul what he’d done. Who he’d done, and how it wasn’t the man he worshipped for decades on end.

_ It ain’t easy to get to heaven when you’re going down _ ...

And he feels so lucky to be certain that there are no gods.

**Author's Note:**

> Pete had a sugar daddy and we need to talk about it


End file.
